


Two-Way Street

by zuzeca



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: tfanonkink, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Femdom, Fingerfucking, Masturbation, Orders, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Prisoner of War, Psychological Trauma, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:46:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzeca/pseuds/zuzeca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcee is given an unpleasant assignment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two-Way Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reyairia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyairia/gifts).



> A little giftfic for Reyairia, who asked for a Post-Predacons Rising POW Starscream discovering that he gets off on Arcee bossing him around and an Arcee who is mostly immune to Starscream's particular brand of manipulative shit. De-anoned from the kinkmeme. Enjoy. :3

“You’re glitched,” said Arcee.

“Sir,” said Ultra Magnus, probably on automatic.

“Fine. You’re glitched, _sir_.”

“I assure you I am quite serious,” said Ultra Magnus. “While the situation is not ideal, you are the only one I trust to provide the necessary supervision. Ratchet is much too busy with the wounded and I fear that the others are far too young and thus too susceptible to the more unsavory aspects of our prisoner’s personality.”

“I know Wheeljack’s out making contact with that transport ship near Star Sector Gamma, but couldn’t you do it?”

A look of mild frustration passed over Magnus’s face, “While it galls to admit it, I have never been effective at seeing through manipulation. It is a weakness of my core programming and while I have learned through vorns of experience, it is still more difficult for me to pick up the more subtle cues.”

“Fantastic,” she said. The jagged scar on her protoform itched and she squelched the urge to scratch at it. “And if he decides to put his claws in me when my back is turned?”

Magnus smiled very slightly, in a way so reminiscent of Optimus it made her spark ache, “That is my other reason for assigning you this mission: you are one of our most effective assassins.”

“Only a Wrecker would smile at something like that,” she muttered. “Fine, I’ll do it. I don’t suppose I’ll get anything like an I/D chip to make my life easier, will I?”

“Inhibitor chips were banned as cruel and unusual punishment under the later amendments to the Tyrest Accord,” Magnus said. An uncomfortable look crossed his face. “Though I may have requested that Ratchet disable the prisoner’s T-cog until further notice.”

“At least I won’t have to worry about him blasting me then. Just stabbing, punching, poisoning, running off, I’ll have to make a list.” She squinted up at him, “I want a raise.”

“Considering that our currency is all but worthless now,” said Magnus. “You are welcome to one.” 

 

“Energon dispenser’s in the main area, so is the newsfeed box, not that there’s anything to watch,” said Arcee, angling her body to block Starscream’s view as she punched in the keycode. “Washrack is the second door from the left, third one’s your room. You’ll be coming with me every cycle for zombie cleanup, all other times you’ll be here. I may leave you alone here sometimes, but don’t get any ideas. The door locks from the outside.”

“The outside?” said Starscream. “What if there’s a fire?”

She leveled a look at him over her shoulder, “Don’t set one.”

His optics narrowed in affront but he didn’t rise to the bait, “At least this should prove to be better accommodations than that the brig on the _Nemesis_. I still hold I’m developing a rust rash.”

“Oh? If you’re feeling poorly, we can always take you to Ratchet again,” she said sweetly, just to watch the look of panic flash across his face.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m certain a proper wash or three will set the matter right.”

She shrugged, set her shoulder to the heavy metal door, not near enough power being produced for the automatic mechanism yet, better to route it to the locks, and shoved it open before motioning him inside. He crept in, ducking and turning to avoid the frame, wings lowered as he looked about warily. “See?” she said. “Not so bad, we’re on a top floor and there’s even a window.”

“I’m sure to an _Autobot_ a view of the sky and access to it are one and the same,” he said. “But not to a Winglord of Vos.”

“Oh stop with the dramatics,” she said. “I was in intelligence. Winglords were minor nobility at best. Actual princes didn’t go around shoving their credentials in everyone’s faceplate at every opportunity.”

“I wouldn’t expect a commoner to understand anyhow.”

“Remind me to take you out with Wheeljack and Bulk sometime,” she said. “We’ll cozy up, have a drink or two, and talk about ‘commoners’.”

“Your petty threats don’t frighten me.”

“I don’t threaten,” she said, and smiled. “Now, we’ve got to be up early next cycle, so I’d take those three washes if I were you and go recharge. I’m turning in.”

She left him standing, oversized and awkward in the tiny common area, and entered her own room at an unhurried pace. She slid the door shut and leaned against it, listening. A long silence, and then the distinctive click of his pedes, the sound of a door sliding open and shut, the creak and groan of pipes too-long unused, and the hiss of falling solvent.

She locked her door, slowly slid down into a seated position, and finally, finally, permitted herself to start shaking.

 

“This isn’t rehabilitation, this is slaughter!”

“Pipe down, or they’re going to hear us,” Arcee said, shifting to try and get a look at the reflection in the filthy metal of the building behind them. The shadowed shapes of the Terrorcons—or was it Predterrors? Who cared—moved aimlessly among the rubble, stymieing her attempts to get a count.

“You’re telling me to go in there with no T-cog, no _weapons_ and you expect me to be quiet?” despite his protests, Starscream had in fact dropped his voice to a low hiss. It seemed his sense of self-preservation won out above all.

She snorted, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re quite helpless without them.” She gave a pointed tap to against her side.

“Those were extenuating circumstances, I was pushed to that!”

“Well I guess we’ll see if these circumstances are sufficiently extenuating,” she said. “Look on the bright side; you’re not even cuffed this time.”

“You, you worthless _Autobot_!”

“They teach you that one in the assembly line?”

Starscream let out a strangled sound of rage, “This is prisoner abuse! Magnus will be hearing about this!”

“Hearing about it? It was his idea.” Right down to the lack of functional T-cog, at least for the moment. Ultra Magnus might not have been the sharpest blade when it came to untangling the various niceties and nastiness of social function, but his knowledge of battle stats was unparalleled. He knew exactly what Starscream was capable of, even unarmed. Rather than waste any more time arguing, Arcee leaned from behind their cover and popped off a shot in the direction of the seething mass. A Terrorcon shrieked and went down, a smoking hole in its helm, and its brethren turned as one towards their hiding spot, purple optics blind and hungry. 

“Hope you’re feeling motivated,” she said, and leapt forward.

The mob struck them like a wave, surging in an uncoordinated gaggle that was no less dangerous for its disorganization. Arcee ducked and dodged, sliding under grasping claws and gaping mouths, firing steadily. A hulking Terrorcon stumbled forward, trying to corner her, and she switched weapons without missing a beat, blasters folding away and blades locking into place as she slashed upwards. Energon sprayed and the creature staggered back minus an arm, its unwieldy bulk cutting a swath through its fellows, and through the gap she saw him.

Ultra Magnus had been right; the lack of weapons hampered Starscream not at all. He slashed and clawed, his tactics reduced to little more than those employed by his enemies, but with far greater finesse. As she watched, he whirled, striking out with the bulk of his wings at a Terrorcon that had come up behind him even as he ripped into the chassis of the one in his grip.

_Cliff’s helm lolled forward, sightless purple optics staring at her, a hideous hiss issuing from his vocalizer. A gaping hole yawned in crimson plating, right above the spark chamber, carved by what she could only now recognize as curved clawed fingers longer than her hand—_

She terminated the line of thought so fast it made her processor spin, whipping around to send a bolt through another Terrocon. Not the time, not the place.

She set her mouth in a grim line and bent herself to the work of battle.

 

“I think I’ve got Terrorcon slime permanently ground into my endostructure.”

“Can it,” said Arcee lazily, flopping down in one of the reclining seats in the living area. There were certain advantages to a world razed to rubble, one of which was the ability to raid other’s habitation suites. Optimus would have been so disappointed, but the pleasurable ache of joints suddenly relieved of pressure quieted the twinge of guilt. And the strut-deep exhaustion from the fight left her unable to muster much of a response to anything, even her partner’s murderer. “If you’ve got the energy to jabber, get me some energon.”

It was mostly a joke, she hardly expected him to do it, but before she could process it fully he was on his feet and headed to the dispenser. It was a small, hooked to a tank piped through the ceiling—a crude method and somewhat extraneous but Magnus hadn’t wanted to provide Starscream with access to cubes, or anything that could double as a bomb—and he had to kneel to reach the spigot. He filled two metal cups, also scavenged from a hab-suite down the corridor, and rose, his wings shifting for balance.

She accepted the cup without thinking, “Thank you.” She was at an utter loss at what else to say.

A strange look crossed his face and his optics darted, “You’re welcome.”

She frowned, raising her cup to hide her expression, processor picking up speed. What was his game? It wouldn’t be the first time Starscream had played at courtesy to get what he wanted, but what he _did_ want remained another matter. She decided not to pursue it, but her instincts pricked.

A deep quiet settled across the room, an eerie quiet. They were in the center of Iacon, what had been the bustling hub of one of Cybertron’s greatest cities, and the silence echoed like a tomb. No traffic, no lights save the dim glow of weak starlight through the window overlooking the city. This late in the cycle, the buildings around them were reduced to stark shadows in the gloom. And as the aches of battle eased, her processor roiled, thought threads growing maudlin and angry.

She finished her energon in a long, impatient draft and rose. Thrusting the cup at him, she said shortly, “Rest of the cycle’s yours. Clean up or something, recharge, I don’t care. I’m out for now.”

Turning her back on his startled expression, she made for her room. She’d wash in the morning, this was hardly the worst condition in which she’d had to recharge. She took a special pleasure in locking the door. Slumping down on the berth, she allowed herself to fall sideways, bringing her legs up in a position that the psych specialists said was reminiscent of the unformed, pre-sparked protoform, and commed Bulkhead.

_“Arcee? It’s almost new cycle, the slagger giving you trouble?”_

She almost laughed. Trust Bulkhead to be ready to leap out of berth at any time of the cycle and come running over to pound a Decepticon, even an ex-Decepticon. _“No, nothing like that. He hasn’t done anything, except complain, and I’d be worried if he **wasn’t**.”_

_“What’s going on?”_

_“Nothing really. How’s the construction?”_

_“Progressing. Vehicons aren’t bad once you get to know them.”_

_“I wish I could say the same for their masters.”_

_“I’ll bet. How are you holding up?”_

_“I don’t really know. Just…sit with me? For a little bit?”_

_“Sure thing.”_

 

Arcee’s struts ached worse than ever when she woke, and her plating seemed ready to crawl off her protoform and flee. Staggering out of the room, she stumbled into the washrack and, groggy, managed to clean herself. Tugging at one of her arms to realign the connector joint, she limped out of the washrack and froze.

The living area, which could have been generously described as existing in a state of organized chaos, was immaculate. Or rather as immaculate as one bot with access to nothing more than scraps of mesh and the solvent from the washracks could render it. Datapads had been shelved, cups had been cleaned, seats wiped, even the floor looked several shades lighter. Starscream was seated, a cup of energon in his hand, another sitting on a small table beside him.

“What did you do?” she blurted.

He hunched slightly and didn’t look at her, “What you told me.”

Clean up, she’d said, and she opened her mouth to clarify that she’d meant wash off when she realized he’d done that too. His wings glowed silver in the faint light from the window, little different from the end of the cycle—Cybertron’s incredibly slow rotation resulted in “days” that lasted half a vorn, something she’d struggled to explain to Jack, they wouldn’t have proper light again for twelve orns—but even in the gloom she could see his plating was spotless.

He looked good, a disturbing realization. She resisted the urge to go wash herself again.

“Thanks,” she said, and then because some little memory of Optimus nudged her, “but you don’t have to do things like this. You’re a prisoner, not a servant.”

“I know that,” he bit out, not looking at her. His back was curved and his wings mantled in a way she hadn’t seen even when he’d been dragged in cuffs before Ultra Magnus, and he seemed strangely embarrassed.

Puzzled, she decided not to question her good fortune for the moment. If Starscream had decided to be a model prisoner and suitemate, who was she to argue?

They refueled in silence, and before she could so much as put down her cup he had snatched it out of her hand and was already wiping it out with a clean bit of mesh. The movement startled her and she had to clamp down on the urge to put a bolt in him.

She half-expected him to demand they leave immediately, in spite of his protests the cycle before, but he merely sat once more, not looking at her.

Curiosity pricked and she decided, mostly on instinct, to try something. “Shall we go?” she said.

He shrugged, curious that he should have picked up such a gesture from Earth when he claimed to despise it so, “As you will.”

Probing, she shifted her vocalizer into the tone she used for shouting at recruits, volume lowered for the sake of their indoor location. “Let’s go,” she snapped.

Like magic, he was on his pedes and headed for the door. Dumbstruck, she stared after him.

 _Frag me,_ she thought. _Looks like our little ‘commander’ would rather receive than give, so to speak._

Her next thought, after she’d shoved aside the little voice frantically shouting at her that this was a terrible idea, which sounded strangely like Bulkhead, was, _I wonder how far he’ll let me take this?_

Only one way to find out. She checked her blasters and followed him.

 

The answer, once she’d quieted the pesky internal nagging with the promise that she wasn’t going to make him do anything _horrible_ —great Primus what sort of monster did they think she was?—was rather far. Oh he still whined and fussed at every opportunity, but not once did he defy an order on the battlefield, or even the tiny commands she slipped in here and there around the hab-suite, requests for energon or the type of fetching and reaching she’d once had to delegate to larger bots or be forced to stand on a crate.

The real problem, at least for her mischievous streak, was that she ran out of ideas far too quickly, and the promise that bound her within the realm of the reasonable meant she was soon reduced to giving him orders to look after himself. Refuel, wash up, she’d even unearthed a tin of wax-sealant, miraculously still soft, from one of the abandoned hab-suites and spent an amused and nearly transfixed end of the cycle watching him out of the corner of her optics as he applied it to his armor, rubbing it in delicate circles until the off-white substance turned hard and transparent. It lent his plating a pleasing gleam. She was sorely tempted to tell him to put it on her, but something in her, something that still woke shaking to the image of purple optics, shied at the thought of him touching her. 

That didn’t mean she wasn’t getting bolder though. After all, their little game was all unspoken, how would she know the boundaries if she did not test them?

“Let me help with that,” she said, watching him contort in what was now becoming a groonly ritual, as he tried to reach his wings. Despite the fact that he still watched her with the wary expression when he thought she wasn’t looking he hesitated only a moment before handing over the tin of wax. Up close, his wings were far more solid than she’d imagined considering the grace with which he moved them, and lined with tiny gouges that gradually smoothed under her hands and the mesh rag. His field was warm and active and she was clean and fed and rested in a way she hadn’t been in vorns, and the feel of a living mechanism beside her after so much loneliness and strut-deep exhaustion sent a brief but pleasurable stir of interest through her.

He must have felt the flux in her field, because he started before straightening and turning his head to leer at her over his shoulder, “See something you like, Autobot?”

The sly tone and self-satisfied smile killed the burgeoning line of code to her interface hardware and left her cold. Tossing the scrap of mesh in his face, she stepped back, “No. Just forgot for a second I was looking at a living scraplet heap instead of an actual bot.”

His wings hiked up and he spluttered in affront. “Why I never—I should have expected such demeaning remarks from an Autobot! I would bet you never even saw us as sentient beings!” he said shrilly. “The tormented masses, crushed beneath your tires, our revolution snuffed out and called illegitimate, our bodies enslaved by the victors.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you got tire treads on your face while you were cruising the skies between the tower of Vos,” she snarled. “And I’m sure you knew _plenty_ about slavery. Enough to know that this? Is not it. Like it or not, Screamer, you’re a prisoner of war now, and you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be the noble and the tragic proletariat revolutionary.”

“Our songs never to be sung!” 

“By the Allspark, don’t you _ever_ get tired of playing the victim?”

“I’ll grow tired of it when it stops working,” he snapped.

It was so startling that she laughed, a short, humorless bark. “I think that’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me. And that includes telling me that you’d killed my partner.”

“As if I can tell one blasted Autobot from another!”

“Well you better start learning,” she said, stepping closer to him, her fists clenched, plating erected in conscious threat display, blind to the fact that he had a good head plus of height on her. “Because I’ve got your number, _Con_. His name was Cliffjumper, you little monstrosity, and he was worth ten of you.”

“Well with a name like that, it wasn’t surprising he wasn’t long for this world.”

"Go frag yourself!"

To her utter shock, instead of spitting insults back at her, he snapped rigid, optics darting. In the ringing silence of her shout she could hear the buzzing of her audials and the pounding throb of her fuel pump.

"Is that what you want?" he said finally, a sibilant snarl.

 _Is that what I want?_ She almost let out a hysterical laugh. _Doesn't he ever stop?_ "Yes," she snapped, challenging, pushing. "That's what I want."

His wings were mantled high and his optics burned like twin coals in the dark of the hab-suite, "Where?"

"Here," she said, not missing a beat, optics locked on his, daring him to argue. And then, because she could feel herself hesitating, slipping, "On the floor. Now."

He knelt, awkwardly, wings hitching as he struggled to keep his balance. "Back against the wall, legs spread," she said shortly.

He obeyed once more, exposing the long interlocking plates of his interface hatch. “Open,” she said and watched it fold away into the armor of his pelvis and thorax. His valve was wet already, just starting to dribble lubricant in a glowing stream, and she felt a disconcerting dissonance of excitement and revulsion.

He started to reach for his spike, still sheathed in its housing, but she held up a hand, her gaze fixed on his valve. “Wait,” she said. “Not that.”

It took him a moment to grasp her meaning, but then he lowered his hand, circling the folds of his valve before spreading them open and she caught a brief glimpse of his biolights as his valve contracted.

“No fingers,” she said. “Concentrate on the exterior sensors.”

“I thought this was for me,” he said, a dour expression on his face even as he arched and rubbed the line of sensors rimming the top of his valve, little glowing stars appearing and vanishing among the folds of mesh.

She smiled, her face tugging in a rictus of amusement. “It is.”

She watched, the sounds of her ventilation loud in her audio sensors, as he moved restlessly, wings scraping against the wall and pelvic span jerking in aborted movement. “I want,” he grumbled, and his claws dug at the folds of his valve in a way that had to be painful.

“Of course you do,” she said. “All you do is want.”

“Slag,” he gasped and lubricant gushed forth, “you.”

“Maybe someday,” she murmured. “You want something in there?”

“Yes!”

She held up her hand once more, extending two fingers. “You get this,” she said. “This or nothing. Yes?”

He groaned, but his valve clenched in telltale excitement, “Fine.”

Active battle protocols left her wired and jittery as she moved closer to him, sliding in between his bent legs. Probing beneath his rubbing hand, she slipped a finger into him. His valve clamped down on it, squeezing hard enough to trap.

She tried to move it, to encourage the mechanisms to spiral open but they remained stubbornly rigid. She frowned. “You’re too tight.”

He shot her a disbelieving look. “ _Knockout_ never complained about it,” he said, his tone snide and pointed.

She snorted. “Then Knockout isn’t the interfacing guru he pretends to be. Your valve isn’t opening up the way it should. Don’t you self-service at all?”

“Of course I do! What sort of question is that?”

“A practical one,” she said, orbital ridge canting. “At the risk of sounding like a manual, relaxation is crucial to interface. You’re wound so tight I’m shocked you can even overload.”

“My overloads are none of your business,” he snapped.

“Oh?” she said. “Is that how it is? Well,” she smiled, a slow, spreading expression that finally rekindled some of the earlier warmth in her chassis and spark, “let’s see if we can cajole one of those oh-so-common overloads, shall we?”

She curled her finger as far as it would bend and he jumped as she scraped over a sensory node. “Still,” she said, in her best “bossing new recruits” voice and watched in fascination as he moaned and went quiet, his shaky fingers still stroking his valve. She slid her finger out and pushed it back in, starting up a slow rhythm, coaxing lubricant and charge to flow. His valve tightened and slowly, slowly, began to open.

Humming in encouragement, she pushed another finger in and his optics rolled, legs jerking in the convulsive precursors of overload. “That’s it.”

She kept him there, riding that edge, moving in counterpoint to his own fingers, slowing and speeding up to push him higher only to let him fall and rise again, until he was whimpering, optics dark and valve leaking so much lubricant that it drenched her hand.

“Please,” he moaned, and she marveled at the sight of his face, snide mask, simpering mask, mask of bravado, all stripped away. It was dangerous, that marvel, warm and exciting, brushing aside the warnings that this was only temporary, that he’d use her and take her for everything she was if given half a chance.

“Not yet,” she said quietly.

“Then when?” he said, voice rising in a high whine.

“Now,” she said, thrusting in her fingers as deep as they would go and curling them just as his fingers raked across his exterior sensors. He convulsed, legs twitching and head jerking back against the wall. Charge seared her fingers, short-circuiting the sensors on them, but she kept up the movement, her hand a blunt, unfeeling instrument, drawing out his overload.

He sagged, the weight of his wings dragging at one shoulder, mouth open as he panted. She waited a moment or two, allowing him to tighten back down around her, before pulling her hand from his valve.

“Told you I overload,” he said, his voice sullen and a touch petulant beneath the exhaustion.

“And so you do,” she said, sitting back. “But if I remember, I told you to go frag yourself, not get me to do it for you.”

His optics lit, watching her warily. “What do you suggest?”

She smiled again and scooted back, bracing herself on the floor and spreading her own legs. “I think a visual demonstration might be a good idea.”

He smiled back and for once there was no devious edge, no sneer, no hint of condescension, “By all means.”


End file.
